You all know that I’m HUGE on your relationship with food coming before intentional fat loss, so we won’t be diving too* deeply into that in this episode (you know I have to mention it though!). We’re diving into 4 other common mistakes women make while trying to get leaner, and why these can lead to a complete lack of progress…or even backsliding.
I cover:
Feedback? Questions? Comments? Head on over to Instagram and let me know in my DMs!
FREE TRAINING
COURSES
Follow me on Tiktok: @jessiemgolden
Subscribe to my Youtube channel
You all know that I’m HUGE on your relationship with food coming before intentional fat loss, so we won’t be diving too* deeply into that in this episode (you know I have to mention it though!). We’re diving into 4 other common mistakes women make while trying to get leaner, and why these can lead to a complete lack of progress…or even backsliding.
I cover:
Feedback? Questions? Comments? Head on over to Instagram and let me know in my DMs!
FREE TRAINING
COURSES
Follow me on Tiktok: @jessiemgolden
Subscribe to my Youtube channel
[00:00:00] Welcome back to the Jesse Golden. Podcast today's subjects. Is all about mistakes women often make when trying to get lean. And bit of a personal update. I am recording this with my little pop Coda. That many of you know, on Instagram. Sleeping in the next room after she was just spade yesterday. And somehow she's already rambunctious as ever, which is proving to be a little bit challenging given that I need to keep an eye on her. Open wound. Well, I guess it's not opened her scar. Her incision to make sure that she does not rip it open.
So we went the laparoscopic route, so it's a little bit smaller and hopefully. The recovery is a little bit. Faster for that reason, but still the bounce back rate. When living creatures are young is just astonishing. Stop wishing I wish I had that bounce back rate even after having a glass of wine. You know what I mean?
[00:01:00] Let alone having my whole uterus removed. So. That is what's been going on over here. It's a snowy day here in Denver after a bunch of really warm weather all throughout February. It's been a nice little reprieve. I find myself being less tolerant to the cold as I get older. I feel like I'm drawn. I love mountain towns so much, but I feel as I get older, I'm drawn more to moderate climates with taking breaks to go to maybe warmer climates or to colder climates in the winter.
So. Where I will end up as a result of that. T B D, but for now we have a snow day, which is perfect because Coda and I are hunkered down unable to really do anything after her surgery and the way. So for today's topic, we are getting into four big mistakes, and this is not an exhaustive list. But these are just four big mistakes.
I see that women make when trying to get [00:02:00] leaner. Very common and very important. So number one, Always dieting. And this is just the typical Western person who is always thinking about weight loss, trying the next thing, they hop from one thing to the next. And it can also manifest as chronically being in a calorie deficit without even realizing it.
So there's kind of two sides to that. But what this can look like in practice. Maybe always choosing the lowest calorie option, or you always have some kind of diet or restriction on your mind. Constant attempt to lose weight, whether that's successful or not doesn't mean that you are losing weight, but just constantly trying to be losing weight that comes with its own set of stressors on the mind and body. This can look like lots of cardio or a lot of exercise in general without proper fuel. And this can be mental or physical dieting. And it's common to be maintaining or even gaining weight. While actively trying to lose weight. This is [00:03:00] extremely common and this was my story. I spent almost a decade constantly trying to lose weight, constantly thinking about it, focusing on it. And all I did was end up heavier. Over time. And I would gain and lose the same amount of weight, but there was never a period of time where I was just saying, okay, I'm not going to be focused on weight loss.
So mentally I was incredibly, incredibly fatigued after nearly 10 years of doing that. You may also experience wait remaining the same or a slight trend downward. But she'll eventually feel like shit. Because you are eating in a deficit less than your body needs to maintain its proper functions. For a very long period of time. And I've spoken about this on social media and in a prior episode. Under eating the nuances of that.
Some women think they're under eating and it's more of that yo-yo pattern where on average they're actually overeating, but still they're mentally fatigued and there's some fatigue that can come along with. Eating. Next to nothing all day [00:04:00] or during the week, and then overeating at night, that's still fatiguing on the body. And then we have the mental restriction aspect of that as well. So someone is always dieting. This tells me that your strategy is off in some way. Either you don't have your foundation of a healthy relationship with food, which. Can often be the case 90% of the time. Or the way you're going about getting leaner is not based on science.
It's not a customized approach for you specifically. It's not taking into consideration your priorities, your lifestyle, your values, and you believe you have to do it in a way that feels really. Oftentimes uncomfortable or just plain miserable and neither of those things need to be the case. So if you find yourself constantly in a state, Of dieting of thinking about weight loss.
That is your signal, that something is off. Some thing is off and pay attention to that. That should not be the case for you.
Now the potential impacts of always dieting or always trying to diet, [00:05:00] even if you're not successfully getting leaner. Down-regulated metabolism, especially if you are, this is more accurate. If you are actually under eating over time. Eventually your body just adapts, which is why we experienced plateaus.
Right. But we don't want to stay in a plateau if that's due to everything. Down-regulating because eventually we start to feel like crap. Digestion slows. Maybe it will have menstrual cycle issues. Low energy mood, poor sleep, things like that.
You'll if you were in this camp and this can be either for the mentally fatigued or physically, you are actually under eating food obsession. Your brain starts to hyper-focus on food. Mistrust with your body. Uh, health issues and mental fatigue, despite no changes to your body. So it's important to know where you stand with us.
And I always say, if you're not going to try and get leaner the right way, you just shouldn't be doing it at all because the downsides to doing it. Are great for your.
[00:06:00] great meeting in size. They're not good for you. They are. Big can be very impactful for you in a negative way, mentally and physically in your body. And usually you will end up heavier over time if you're not doing it the right way. So, what is the solution here? Uh, taking a mental break to focus on your relationship with food. I exercise body and yourself. This is the part so many people want to skip because they think they're just going to blow up and gain gain a hundred pounds over night. You won't. And I promise you, it will.
It is the thing that will set you up for success down the road.
If you suspect that you were under eating truly under eating, then I would consider my maintenance masterclass, or if you know how to do that on your own increase, your maintenance calorie intake. To find what the proper maintenance calorie intake is for you to thrive. We want to be eating at meat knits when we are not actively trying to lose weight.
And if you have been spinning your wheels, And our metabolism feels like it's down-regulated you were suffering from some of those [00:07:00] nagging health issues. You just generally don't feel well. Trying to then. Decrease calories further on top of that, you are in for a shit show. You are going to feel really bad.
You are going to start to think about food a lot. It is not going to be good. So again, take a break and then you may also need to find that new maintenance calorie intake for yourself, a proper maintenance. So that your metabolism feels really healthy and strong.
Spend several months prioritizing your mental health and your metabolic health before trying to get into a deficit again, several months, not just four weeks. It takes several months. And I know with summer coming up, people want to short change this. I intentionally sat at a higher weight all throughout summer of 2021 when I moved to New York, because I knew that was the best thing for my metabolic health was to stay. At that higher calorie intake I had just moved.
I was under a lot of stress. I had recently lost some weight. Which means that I was already in a deficit. And for me personally, I know that I tend to be [00:08:00] a little bit more stress sensitive. So I needed to stay at that higher weight all throughout the summer. And guess what? Nothing happened. I didn't die.
Everything was okay. I lived a normal life. And then when I was actually ready later that fall. In October, my body was way more responsive because I was not dicking around trying to eat low calorie all the time. I made sure that my metabolism was in a really good spot. So we want to be. Ensuring that you're using a phasic approach. Backed by science.
And that also focuses on your relationship with food. So that when you are ready to go, you're doing it right this time. Remember we're not just doing it to do it. We're doing it for the last time. That's a totally different way of doing it. Oh, I just need to get lean for this vacation. No, you need to be thinking of it.
I'm getting lean for the last fucking time. And that will drastically change the way you're looking at your strategy.
The second mistake is. And this is going to be a [00:09:00] little bit controversial for some people, but is just eat healthy. And of course we all want to be healthy, eat healthy, but when it comes to physique change, this is step one. And many women like myself need to have a step two.
So if you're just eating healthy. This can be where people's quote unquote settling point is reached, and that's basically a. Conglomeration of some genetic input, environmental input, behavioral input. Where you're living a lifestyle of moderation, there will be some genetic influencer, and that is where your body weight remains. But we can change that. Your body typically needs to go through a period of almost morning body fat. So the longer you stayed away, the more your body adapts to it, and it becomes comfortable that weight.
And this goes in both directions. So it would be who've you to stay at a new, lower weight and say, okay, I need to be at this weight for a long time before I then try and get a little bit leaner. [00:10:00] Because your body's going to adapt to that in the same way. If you're are heavier. And if you've been heavier for 10 years, it might be a little bit more difficult for someone who's been at that weight for that long. As compared to someone who's only been at that higher weight for one to two years. But that's a whole separate aside.
I don't want to get too far in the weeds with that, but. If you want to get leaner from this comfortable place where your body settles. You will need a deliberate deficit to get leaner. Further. Some people's quote unquote, healthy diet. Is much higher in calories than it needs to be. And this is really common with high fat eaters. So they will think, oh, this is just where my body's meant to be.
And again, that's not a thing set point theory. It's a theory. And we now know that it's much more, it's not just a genetic determinism. It's many different factors that contribute to your body weight, including environment, behavior, et cetera. But those who tend to eat higher calorie foods, even if they are healthy. We'll likely be [00:11:00] at a higher. Body weight. Then someone who chooses lower calorie options, this doesn't mean to always choose the lower calorie option.
There's a lot of nuance here, but I'm just throwing this in there. That for me in the past, and I see this with a lot of clients, especially those who come from more of a paleo background. Higher fat, lower carb that their calorie intake, because the foods they're eating are higher in calories. They can just make some simple swaps. And they will actually have that beautiful lifestyle of moderation at a lower calorie intake. So that's something to consider as well. Now you will want to, if you find, okay, I'm just eating healthy, but I'm still not at the Z physique that I want.
You will want to use a phasic approach that brings you. Into a deficit then back into your new maintenance after being in that deficit. So if you're sitting here thinking, oh, this is just the way that I am. I eat healthy. I work out and my body. Is not looking the way that I want it to know that that's normal. I was in your same position.
I was [00:12:00] still be 20 pounds heavier. If I had not deliberately gone through phasic nutrition approach to get to my new, lower body weight. And this is what I take a lot of my clients do so many of my clients inside of SLA say, I thought that I was doing everything right, because I was just eating healthy. And exercising. Several times a week.
And of course that is so amazing and essential for health. But we're talking about getting a certain level of leanness that is desirable for you. You can still be healthy in both of those. Arenas. It's just one is going to require a little bit more focus and dedication to get there.
Number three, the third mistake is being too focused on exercise, and this is still such, such a common misconception is that there's some type of magical exercise that will get you to your body.
That will get you leaner. And I was on this hamster wheel for so. Long for so long, I would look at a woman doing this type of exercise and say, oh, it's the exercise. It's not how it works. Not how it works. [00:13:00] So I would advise you to view exercise as the vehicle to changing your shape. And improving your health. Remove weight loss or fat loss from the equation for the most part, yes, we can influence that.
But the reason that I recommend this is just to hit the minimum guidelines for health that already can be fairly time-consuming for people in modern day. For most women, you need to get to full body resistance training sessions and per week.
And this is just baseline. Health, right. Not talking about building muscle. To full body resistance training sessions per week. It would prefer progressive overload because that's the most efficient, effective way to build muscle.
And in terms of cardio. Recommendations 75 minutes of vigorous cardio. Per week or 150 minutes of moderate intensities. That would be about 30 minutes. If we're doing the moderate intensity. Let's say jogging just as an example, 30 minutes of jogging, five times a week. [00:14:00] Plus two full body resistance training sessions. Then we want to be moving throughout the day.
Right? So you can see how this adds up and people think, okay, this is, of course we want this to be part of our healthy lifestyle, but to go beyond that, To have that as an extra level lever, excuse me, to pull during fat loss, that can be really time consuming for a lot of people. So I recommend just viewing exercise as okay.
Building shape through muscle. And then my health. Meeting the minimum guidelines.
And then everything else comes from diet for the most part. If you have the time and allowance to get some extra movement. And when you're trying to drop body fat. Sure. But, like I said, for most people, it's going to be easier to manipulate your calorie intake or your food. And resistance training. Is absolutely important. Again, progressive overload is what I would recommend.
If you are able to do that. To maintain muscle. While you're losing [00:15:00] body fat. Otherwise you're going to be losing muscle. And that's just going to lead to you being a smaller version of a similar body fat percentage. Of course you won't be losing all muscle. But a greater proportion of the weight that you're losing will be coming from muscle versus fat. And I don't know about you, but I want to hold on to that muscle.
And so many women think that they're overly muscled when they just have more body fat on top of their muscle than they would prefer. And if they were to drop body fat, then they would say, oh shit, I actually really like this muscle that I have. So those, of course, it's up to you. You can have whatever physique. Prefer whatever aesthetic that you want.
It's just something to consider that will also allow you to eat more. While you're maintaining your body weight. Because you will weigh more. The more you weigh. And the more muscle you have, the more energy you're expending, just moving throughout your day-to-day because you're able to do more shit. Just having more muscle on your body is going to set you up for maintaining your body weight, your body [00:16:00] composition, longterm.
And number four, ignoring small details.
This is a big one. Those little bites and licks add up. Especially if you are a mother and you are cooking for children. I see this all the time. I hear it all the time. Eating off her kids' plates when they're cleaning up their kids' plates, they're eating bites of this and that those things can easily put you back into maintenance.
If you're not paying attention, if you're trying to be in a deficit. And this can happen if you're tracking. If you're not tracking. It doesn't matter because you can just pretend it's not happening or does not include it. And many women end up eating more when they track. Because they quote unquote, hide things from themselves out of shame.
They don't want to put it in the app. Because they don't want to see that they've gone over their numbers. They just pretend it's not happening. This is super, super common. Whereas, if you're not tracking, you might be a little bit more honest with yourself because you don't have a piece of paper or an app staring at you saying you would over redline. But you still need to be accountable to yourself. Don't [00:17:00] obsess, but be accountable and honest with yourself because this is just going to minimize frustration. Being honest about what we're actually doing.
The alternative is we sit there and we go into victim mode and we say, oh, this doesn't work for me. When reality it does work for you. It's just, you are not working the system. You're not doing what you said you were going to do. Those small bites and Lex add up, especially when we're talking about things that are higher.
In fact, The extra thing of peanut butter. Damn does that add up? Yes, it does. And that's a small thing, even though it's a pain in the ass. If you're in the habit. Of having those small bites and links. If you really sit with yourself and you think about it, Those aren't actually providing anything to your life. For one second. They're adding you, providing you with a moment of pleasure. They're not really adding satisfaction to your life.
So that's something that you can be honest with yourself. And if you're a little bit more mindful of can probably simply reduce and see greater results.
So these are four [00:18:00] big mistakes that I see, and I would love to hear which ones you guys make, which ones you think you might be making. If you need help with sussing that out, let me know, shoot me a message over on Instagram.
I always love to hear your guys' feedback on these podcast episodes. It encourages me to continue posting them because sometimes it feels like these are just flying into the bus. You know what I mean? Talking to myself. And if you suspect that you're under eating or you just want to learn more about maintenance, calories, metabolism, the maintenance masterclass. Uh, $27 is linked in the show notes below. Healthy habits, foundations.
It's going to be for you. If you want to dial in your healthy habits. If you were thinking, okay, you need to be consistent. That metabolic health I was telling you about would be really great combination with the maintenance masterclass. To get you ready for an intentional fat loss phase down the road. And if you need to work on your relationship with food, food, freedom, evolution. And of course sustainably lean academy.
If you are ready to jump into intentional that loss, all [00:19:00] of these resources are linked in the show notes below. And if you need my help, if you're not really sure which plan of action is best for you, where to go from here. I love talking to you guys about this to make sure that you are. Going to the right place, because I don't want you joining something that is not the right fit for you.
So definitely send me a message over on Instagram and just say the word course, and I will help you figure out which one is best suited for you. All right. Have a great week. You guys, and I will see you in the next one.